


Lift with Your Knees

by sleepygold



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon-Typical Violence, Female Thor (Marvel), Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-06-26 11:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepygold/pseuds/sleepygold
Summary: (“Lift with your knees, atlas. The heavens are a burden, but in the starlit ink of constellations you have written: endure.”)-weight, a.jThor grows up in a society that questioned her desires as much as it held her beloved for them.She wondered why one’s worth could be so easily judged, not by their actions, but by the position they held in another’s eyes.





	1. Thor

**Author's Note:**

> I began wondering just how much of Thor’s intense personality would carry over if he grew up with such different expections from birth. So...here we are.
> 
> (Heavily inspired by [this picture](https://goo.gl/images/GkgCte) and [Limitations of Wax by RayShippouUchiha](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606808/chapters/15115414))

Frigga had been laboring for near 10 hours, sweating and nearly delirious with pain, when her babe finally greeted the world with an angry cry. It was nearly inaudible from the thunder that rumbled outside from greatest storm Frigga had seen yet in Asgard.

A part of her was bitter at the Norns for sullying her child’s first day with such dark weather. Surely they could have given her first child and Asgard’s future king a clear sky?

She hoped it was not an ill omen. 

The accompanying lightning with that thought was so bright that Frigga had to blink spots from her eyes, missing the opportunity to lay eyes on her squalling babe as Eir whisked him away to no doubt clean and examine. 

“How ominous,” she heard Eir’s assistant mumble, a young girl that Eir had promised Frigga was capable. The girl, who’s name slipped the Queen’s mind, wrung water from a rag and was gently rubbing Frigga’s belly to coax out the afterbirth. 

_Even knowing childbirth was one of my blessed domains made this day not one bit easier_ , she thought with a grimace as she felt it slide out of her, far more smoothly than her son had. 

“Eir,” she said, when she saw the healer had calmed his cries and had wrapped him in a red cloth with golden trimmings, the colors of Odin’s House. Perfect for Odin’s heir that Frigga had sewn herself when she learned she was pregnant. “Bring me my son.”

Eir glanced at her with such a weary expression that Frigga felt her body go cold in fear. 

“What is it? What’s wrong with my son.” She demanded, ignoring her protesting body to stand when Eir made an uncertain noise and no step forward. 

“My Queen,” Eir said in alarm, striding forward. “Please, you must rest. You bled heavily from the birth-”

When she was close enough, Frigga snatched the babe from Eir frantically, turning to lay him on the bed, unwrapping the blanket to look at his body. 

The moment his hands were freed, he held them to his chest with a cry and she swore the lightning outside flashed briefly with it. He had all his limbs and toes, she mused. So why...

His knees were curled to his soft belly and the umbilical stump was cut cleanly. And there, between his legs was something missing. 

A girl, Frigga realized. 

Her daughter let out another cry with the thunder and her Frigga realized her fingertips and toes were turning blue. Quickly wrapping her babe once more, she picked her up far more gently than she first had, and held her to her chest. 

_A daughter_ , Frigga thought with no small amount of shock. As far as Odin’s line spanned there have only ever been sons. Neither Buri nor Bor had any daughters at all. _Asgard must wait once more for an heir still_. 

The thought made her weary in a way the long birth had not. 

Not once had anyone, herself included, entertained the idea of a girl being born to the royal house of Asgard. Vanaheim, perhaps, like herself, but...

 _Not only were you born in a storm_ , Frigga thought, watching the babe who quieted and went back to sleep with a pursed lips. _You had the gall to defy your parent’s expectations before you could lift your head_. 

“What’s wrong with the babe, Eir?” The girl whispered warily from the end of the bed. Eir and the girl had quickly replaced the bedsheets soiled with the birth with clean ones and eased Frigga back into them, clinging to her babe all the while as she slept, her small snores vibrating through her back to Frigga’s hand. 

“Nothing at all,” Frigga said firmly before Eir could respond. “Send for the guard outside to call for Odin. Tell him my labor is over.”

It was nearly sunset, she knew despite the storm, but she didn’t doubt Odin was eagerly awaiting any news for she and their firstborn. 

However, no sooner did the girl open the chamber door, the women saw Odin standing in the doorway, fist raised to knock, in his casual day wear still despite the late hour. Eir bowed and the girl quickly took a step away from the door and her King to fall into a curtsy. 

His eyes immediately met Frigga and darted down to wear their daughter dozed on her chest.

“Is all well?” He asked Eir, who straightened and gave an affirmative. “Then leave us,” Odin ordered, paying them no more attention and striding to Frigga. 

She too, paid no mind to the chamber doors shutting, watching Odin slowly sit in the empty space next to her on the bed, his shoulder pressed against hers. 

“How fare you and our son?” He asked, leaning in to look at the babe’s face, reaching out his hands in clear request. 

“We are both well,” she told him, passing her over. Odin held her in the air in front of him, his great hand supporting her head, her body resting on the length of his arm. 

“He has your golden hair,” he commented, running the back of his fingers softly on her nearly bald head. He wore the most gentle look on his face that she hadn’t known him capable of and was glad for it. 

Frigga took a breath. “Husband,” she began. Then paused, glancing down as the babe snuffled and began to scrunch its tiny face. 

Entranced, she and Odin watched the babe begin to try and squirm her arms out of her tight swaddling and succeed. 

Before, Frigga had been too fretful to truly look at her child beyond the bare minimum. Now, she marveled at the small hands that reached above herself and grasped the air. 

Together, she and Odin watched her lay her eyes upon her parents for the first time. Her eyes were a dark blue as all new babe’s were. She blinked at Odin who watched her back with a small smile. 

“Have you a name, little one?” He asked the babe, though he tilted his head to Frigga in question. 

“I was thinking,” Frigga said slowly in thought. “Perhaps something to do with the sky.”

“The sky?” Odin asked, glancing at the balcony windows with a sardonic look. Indeed, it was pitch black outside with no moon to be seen. The storm had slowed but it’s dark clouds lingered, occasionally flecked with small bursts of lightning. 

Frigga grinned in response. “Her first cry overpowered the thunder that accompanied her first breath.”

“Her?” Odin glanced back down to the babe who stared at him still. “A daughter?” He asked, bewildered. 

“A daughter,” Frigga confirmed. 

“How unexpected,” he mused, reaching a finger out to touch her tiny hands, as Frigga longed to. She was wary to touch her daughter’s skin, wary of what visions, however vague or brief, the Norns would send her about her daughter’s future.

As expected, the babe clenched her fist around it, her eyes blinking and slowly moving to Frigga, who leaned into her line of vision to better observe her. 

“She’s strong, our daughter,” Odin said slowly, trying the word out. “Our daughter,” he repeated. A nod followed the word, more certain. “My heir and the future Queen of Asgard,” he said with finality in his voice. 

Frigga looked at him in shock as he rose from the bed and placed their babe back into Frigga’s arms, who began squirming once more, and she suspected it was time for the babe’s first feeding. 

Now though, Frigga watched Odin with wide eyes as he strode toward the doors and told the two Einherjar at both sides of the doorway, “Ring the bells. Let Asgard know its Princess and my heir has been born.”

The guards startled at his strong tone, jumping to attention. They glanced to each other in surprise and, with a quick bow to the Allfather, began to march away. 

Odin turned back and made to reenter the chambers when one of the guards, clearly the younger of the two, called back to him. 

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing quickly. “I offer my congratulations. Though if I may speak out of turn?”

Odin eyed him with a frown and Frigga put it up to his high mood that he didn’t dismiss the guard but instead nodded his assent. “You may.”

“The Princess?” the guard asked. “Does she have a name?”

Odin glanced back into the room towards the babe, who’s squirming finally evolved into a wail. Thunder suddenly rumbled so strongly that Frigga could feel it in her bones. She tried to shush her daughter to no avail as the storm began anew.

“Thor,” Odin announced in a grave tone. “Her name is Thor.”


	2. Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Lift with your knees, atlas. The heavens are a burden, but in the starlit ink of constellations you have written: endure.”  
> -weight, a.j

Once the swelling had gone down, Frigga didn’t believe she was being biased when she told Heimdall, when he first arrived at her rooms an hour just past sunrise, “Is she not the most beautiful babe you’ve ever gazed upon?”

Thor was wide awake and stared at Heimdall when Frigga passed her over, accepting the congratulations he’d given when he entered. 

Heimdall, wisely, did not dispute this. “She is fortunate that she seems to have your eyebrows and not the Allfather’s,” he told her with a twinkle in his golden eyes. “Though the way she greeted the world, she made it quite clear she has inherited his temper.” 

Frigga laughed aloud in agreement and Thor startled at the sound. Heimdall quickly soothed her with ease, stroking a finger between her brows. 

“You are easy with her,” Frigga noted as she led him through her foyer to the balcony that overlooked her gardens. “One of your mothers just had a daughter as well, yes?” She waved away her personal servant, Kidar, as she and Heimdall sat, pouring Heimdall a cup of tea herself.

“Sif is her name. She is but six months now. Perhaps she and Thor will grow together,” Heimdall said, adjusting his grip on Thor to accept the drink with a nod of thanks.

Indeed they would, Frigga knew. She would have to make sure of it. Thor would be in need of friends and handmaidens to hold close and hear whispered secrets they overheard. Who better watch over her daughter than the Eternal Guardian’s own sister? The court would always guard their tongues near the royal family.

(Inwardly, Frigga rejoiced that she and Odin had a _family_ now. That all the realms would refer to them as the _royal family_ as such now that Thor was counted among them.)

“If I may ask, my Queen,” Heimdall began. “When Thor drank from you for the first time, you startled when she touched you. I would ask what visions of her you saw so I may be prepared for Asgard’s sake.”

It was such poor taste to ask a seer what visions they saw, but Heimdall was perhaps the only exception Frigga could accept. As the Gatekeeper of the realm eternal, Heimdall was the first line of defense of Asgard.

More importantly, he would be _Thor’s_ first line of defense. 

Before she married Odin, she had heard many rumors of Heimdall. Her father, Freyr, the now Warden of Vanaheim, once whispered to her that Heimdall could hear all, from the pulse of babes still in their mother’s wombs on Alfheim to glaciers cracking on Jotunheim. That he could hear them speak of him in that moment, and had likely watched them gossip about him.

Frigga remembered shuddering when he told her as such and later, upon arriving to Asgard through the Bifrost, how embarrassed she felt when Heimdall greeted her with a knowing smile. 

These reasons weren’t enough for her to divulge in what she saw. Her reasons were far more blatant. 

“I saw you lend her your Sight for many breaths, to give her hope when she despaired,” she told Heimdall, who looked surprised.

“I’ve heard that Buri had this ability,” he admitted. “But he taught it to none. I didn’t know I could learn this skill myself.” He looked contemplative but nodded at her to continue. 

By merely speaking of visions breathed life into them, Frigga knew. When spoken aloud they became less of a vision and more of a prophecy. 

A guarantee.

She has seen civilizations bleed, seen the conquering of Vanaheim a millennia before it happened and didn’t say a word, even when her father begged of her to speak of a more positive future so it might occur. 

But for her daughter-

_But for her daughter-_

She continued on regardless, suddenly wanting to unload the heavy burdens she had felt but for one night. 

“I saw a boy and then a man with green eyes always at her side as she grew. Always watching her. Then he wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t watching her?” Heimdall asked when she didn’t continue. 

“Wasn’t at her side,” Frigga corrected. 

_Look for this man_ , she wanted to command of him, but knew it too vague a description to continue in that vein. 

For a moment they were both silent and did not speak. Visions were fickle things. The man could one day betray Thor or be betrayed by her. He could be a scorned lover or a blood brother that simply grew away. 

Before the silence could become heavier, Frigga continued, “I saw blood stain her hands as often as they extended down to help someone up. I saw a gaping hole in her head in the place of an eye, then with a jewel in its place. I witnessed lightning dance upon her skin and eyes when she raged. And _oh_ , will she rage. I watched her reach for Mjölnir and weep when she could not lift it,” she said. 

“So the storm yesterday was no omen, but a gift to her from the Norns themselves,” Heimdall concluded. “Let none say she did not earn her-” he cut himself off abruptly, eyes fixed on her daughter’s face but looking far, far beyond her.

Frigga tensed and watched Heimdall’s lips tighten. 

An entire minute passed before Heimdall’s gaze shifted slightly back to the babe’s face. She watched him stroke one finger over her sparse hair for a quiet moment before standing and handing her back to Frigga. 

“It seems, Allmother,” he murmured. “That we will be at war with the Jötuns before the day is done.”

He bowed her and strode out of the terrace. After a few seconds she could hear the chamber doors open and shut as he left entirely, no doubt with haste to the King. 

Frigga stared blankly at the horizon for some minutes until Thor stirred at her breast. 

“War,” she told her daughter who gazed at her. “You were born in a storm and now a war blooms with the most brutal warriors of the Nine Realms on your first day. May this dark beginning not weigh on your life,” she whispered. 

Standing, she called Kidar back into her chambers. She appeared within seconds. No doubt she saw Heimdall leave in rush. A sight no Aesir wished to see. 

“Help me undress,” Frigga told her. “I need to feed my daughter. Then help me dress into the gown Odin gifted me for my name day fourteen years ago.”

“The gold and blue one, your Grace?” Kidar questioned, her voice as soft as ever. 

“The very one,” she confirmed. She never actually wore the gown before. The Light Elves who made the gown thought her hips larger than they had been then, to her prior offense. Now though, it would do perfectly.

Kidar made quick work with the laces at her ribs and back, loose as they were, and Frigga shifted her arms out of her sleeves. Immediately, Thor began to root for her nipple and Frigga held her close as she nursed, stepping out her gown when Kidar carefully pulled it down her sore hips. 

She stood in just her underwear as she watched Kidar drop her dark blue gown on her bed carelessly, already moving to the dresser to pull out her gown. 

Kidar doubtlessly sensed the urgency. She would never have the gall to treat Frigga’s possessions so roughly otherwise. She knew Kidar would treat and hang it properly when Frigga left, however, so didn’t comment. 

Kidar began laying out her face paints and, to Frigga’s amusement, the smallest dress she had seen yet, out next to Frigga’s own. 

At her raised eyebrow, Kidar flushed. “Apologies, your Grace. I know it isn’t custom for a newborn to wear formal attires, but I found myself idle this final month as you were in bed rest,” she confessed, cheeks red as she continued to pull out a pair of Frigga’s stockings and boots. “Forgive my assumptions but few mothers can bear parting from their babe’s only hours after the birth. I believed you were taking her with you.”

Unsaid was Thor could hardly be officially presented to anyone she hadn’t already met in just her swaddling clothes. 

Said babe unlatched her mouth and snored as Frigga lifted her to her shoulder to burp. 

“You have my unexpected thanks,” Frigga told her, moving to lay Thor carefully on the bed. “The family portrait wouldn’t be for months and I haven’t had so much as a sock made for her yet, so focused I was on her blankets and swaddling,” she said. 

Kidar carefully pulled the gown over Frigga’s head, gentle as she pulled it over her breasts. She crouched down to straighten the bottom and ease her swollen feet into her stockings and then her boots as Frigga pulled her arms through the gown.

“You’ll have to pull me in tightly. You needn’t be careful for my pains in this. I cannot have the Council see me gentle today, babe in arm or not,” Frigga said sternly when Kidar was as gentle tying up her corset as she had her simple dress from the morning.

Rather than respond, Kidar pulled the strings tightly. Frigga uttered no sound as spots briefly danced in her vision. 

Blinking spots from her eyes, she reached out to her vanity and began to paint her cheeks and lips as Kidar began loosening sections of her braids. 

When they finished, together they moved to Thor, who laid limply as she maneuvered her tiny limbs into her blue dress, which Frigga admitted to Kidar was well made and fit the babe well. 

She loosely wrapped the babe in a blanket to keep her warm, knowing it would be undone before long by the babe herself. 

The servant began to properly lay out Frigga’s previous gown and Frigga stood at the door, Thor in her arms. 

Steeling herself, she swung them open. The two guards, different from the ones present for the birth, stood at attention, shooting Thor curious looks. 

Ignoring them, she began to stride out of the keep, watching as Lord, Lady, and servant alike bowed and curtsied to her as she passed, looking at the babe with wide eyes. Frigga’s stern face kept them from offering congratulations or moving closer. 

Nearly seven minutes of this passed before she finally arrived to Odin’s office, weary from the walk and Thor’s weight in her arms, sweet and light as she was. 

The guard closest to the door made to speak to her, likely that Odin demanded he not be disturbed. 

Ignoring him, she opened the door, briefly cursing that it was so heavy. 

Tyr, it seemed, had already been summoned for his position as Master of Law, or less discreetly, his role as the God of Justice. Or, in the _worst_ case scenario, as Odin’s War General. 

He ceased what he was telling the King and immediately rose to bow to her with a greeting of, “Allmother.”

Heimdall sat to Odin’s left and made no indication he saw Frigga at all, despite being the only one facing the door, looking off into the middle distance. 

She met eyes with Odin who watched her steadily. 

“Wife,” he greeted.

“Husband,” she responded evenly. She moved and took the seat to Heimdall’s left. With only Tyr and Heimdall present, there was no need for a sitting hierarchy, thankfully. She would be loathe to make Heimdall move with his concentration fixed as it is. 

“Forgive me, my Queen. I offer my congratulations on the Crown Princess of course,” Tyr said, glancing down to Thor with his pale grey eyes. “But is this a place suitable for the babe?” 

“Your concerns are understandable, General Tyr,” she told him. “Is she disturbing you?” 

In unison, Tyr, Odin, and, even more humorously, Heimdall, who didn’t need to move his eyes to see, glanced to Thor who opened her eyes and stared silently at Tyr, who was directly in her line of sight. 

“No, your Grace,” he responded. 

Taking care to not roll her eyes, Frigga turned to Odin and asked, “So what has Laufey-King done to earn our ire?”

“He has invaded Midgard using the Casket of Winters with a score of Jötuns. Thus far they have killed forty mortals in Tønsberg,” he said. 

Tønsberg was a village Odin used to frequent in his youth, if Frigga wasn’t mistaken. Though it was never stated outright, most in the Nine Realms dare not step foot in Norway, the lands in Midgard where Tønsberg was located. 

What _was_ stated outright, to Laufey-King himself no less, was that his kind shall not trespass on Midgard entirely. It had been their agreement when Odin set terms during his conquest over the Realms. 

All the Realms fought Odin with all their might or not at all when he arrived with armies to their lands. 

Muspelheim knelt when Odin stepped foot on their grounds, long since cowed when Odin nearly slaughtered their King, Sutur, before he was even a century old. 

For Jotunheim, Odin and Laufey bargained trade deals that, in Frigga’s opinion, came out better for Jotunheim than Asgard. It was, however, the last realm Odin cared to conquer. When Laufey knelt, Odin returned to Asgard, content with Nine Realms for all his army was strong enough still to topple more. 

The ice and fire Realms were the only ones to kneel without blood. 

That was 1600 years ago now and Odin has turned over his warmongering in favor of ruling through peace. 

She suspected Tyr was present so Odin might have the slightest chance to avoid this war. All Tyr had to do was find a loophole in the terms of agreement and Laufey would walk free. 

Frigga knew there would be none found.

Midgard was the first of Odin’s realms conquered, simply by stepping foot there first. The mortals were short lived and had no means to contact any beings besides themselves. When Odin arrived, they would spill blood in his name and gift him their greatness riches. 

_Maybe that’s when he realized he enjoyed being bowed to_ , Frigga thought unkindly. 

“As it is, Allfather,” Tyr was saying, “Laufey has killed some mortals under your protection-“

“I know well that he’s killed them. Do you believe I cannot hear their prayers for me? The goats the mortals slaughter in my name in hope I will protect them?” Odin said gruffly. 

Tyr was too professional in such a setting to sigh, but Frigga knew he wanted to by his slow inhale. “Perhaps if he only stepped foot on Midgard, the lapse in the treaty could be forgiven. With the mortals dead, it had been rendered null,” he said bluntly. No doubt he had been trying to ease into it but Odin’s words made the room tense. Even Heimdall was frowning. 

For all that Odin’s armies succeeded at every turn, even they had tired of nothing but ceaseless war for decades on end. Tyr lost a hand to a Dwarf on Nidavellir during Odin’s conquest; countless other soldiers lost limbs as well. 

Odin’s wars humbled an entire generation to crave peace. 

Odin reached out to Frigga and she wordlessly passed over their daughter. The room was silent as Odin watched Thor unblinkingly. 

The air was near awkward when Odin finally murmured, “I had never wanted peace in the Realms more in my life before today.”

Frigga, who never wanted war in her life even once, agreed full heartedly. 

_My child cannot defend herself. This is the most vulnerable she will ever be in all her life. And war comes._

Odin opened the office doors and ordered the Einherjar there, babe in arm still, to ring the bells for the second time in twelve hours. 

_War comes._

.

.

She held the throne in Odin’s stead, riding her mare down the Rainbow Bridge to pester Heimdall for news at sundown everyday without fail, Thor at her breast or in Kidar’s care. It was just past Thor’s first name day when the gatekeeper finally gave her information of worth

“The Jötuns have fled back to Jötunheim to regroup. Odin has decided to follow to not give them time to recover,” Heimdall told her one day, expression unyielding on whatever opinion he held.

Frigga did not know what _following_ entailed. She knew through that the war was pressing to a close and it was enough for her. 

That night she kept Thor out of her nursery and in her own bed, clutching her close. 

The following week, Heimdall went to her directly in the dead of night to Odin’s office, where she was hunched over documents detailing a dispute over land, to report that he would soon be opening the Bifrost to return home their soldiers, as Laufey had surrendered to Odin. 

As soon as she deemed it appropriate, she sent guards to ring the castle bells five times to call Asgard to an audience before the Grand Balcony to announce the war was over, waiting until she was alone to cry, with only her year old daughter, and perhaps Heimdall, as her witness. 

Frigga later rejoined the court and publicly thanked every soldier she saw, acknowledging their bravery and Asgard’s own relief at their homecoming, taking care to not leave the welcoming feast that night until Thor began to loudly fuss. 

..

Feeling guilty for using her babe’s cries as an excuse, she gifted Thor with a plum from her garden, watching as she ceased her angry wriggling against her hip to bite into it eagerly, grinning at her mother with a wet mouth. 

“Your emotions change with the wind,” Frigga complained to Thor with a smile as they entered the nursery, smiling at the guard there, Harold, who opened it for her unasked.

Thor stared at her for a moment before offering the plum with an already sticky hand.

“But you’re such a sweetheart!” Frigga laughed, plucking her up to spin her about.

Her laughter was the sweetest thing Frigga had heard today, even sweeter than Heimdall’s news at dawn, or even Asgard’s cheers at the assembly that morning.

Setting Thor down with a hum near her wooden blocks and stuffed toys, Frigga turned to her spindle, one she had placed in the nursery for herself when Thor was only three months, fingers bending with every idea turning in her head, full of blues and golds. 

Frigga’s hums slowly turned into light singing as the silence began to nettle her. Simple, sweet songs she only sang for Thor alone began echoing in the room alongside the girl’s play. 

Perhaps only an hour had passed before Thor’s call of “Mama!” Had her turning around, fingers stilling. 

Her daughter was presenting the plum seed to her with a proud grin, strands of hair sticking to her mouth where the juice smeared. 

“Oh dear,” she sighed, already deciding she was too tired to wipe her off until her bath in another hours time. “I don’t want that,” she informed Thor, who had already turned away to offer it to her stuffed lamb. 

With a fond sigh, she returned to her weaving and began to sing softly once more, listening to Thor’s babble at her toys, only able to understand a handful of words as she played alone.

Frigga felt the air shift with heavy seidr and she knew the Bifrost had been opened for the second time today. 

Her husband had returned. 

“Come, Thor. Your father is returned to us,” she said with a smile, turning away from her spinning to look at her daughter. 

Thor ignored her, continuing to try and wrest the plum seed out of the layers of her dress with clumsy fingers. 

Frigga reached down and plucked it out herself, giving it to Thor who finally looked her. 

“Come, my golden girl. Let’s hope you haven’t forgotten him,” she said she picked her up and rested her on her hip.

“Mine,” Thor told her, pushing the seed in her face. 

“Yours,” she agreed, waving away Harold outside the door when it seemed he meant to follow as she left. 

It took but a minute to walk from the nursery to Odin’s personal chambers.

She sat in the foyer for nearly an hour, watching Thor amuse herself by pulling open Odin’s drawers, pulling out quills and small trinkets, only intervening when the girl found inkwells or documents.

“Mine,” she told Frigga, when she discovered a silver goat the size of her fist. Rather than throw it carelessly behind her, as she did _everything_ these days, she ran to Frigga and crawled into her lap. “Mine,” she repeated, showing it to Frigga. 

Before she could respond, she heard an ugly crackle and a mocking, “ _Mine!_ ”

She turned to the window and saw Huugin perched there, watching them with beady eyes. She tried to greet him and was interrupted with an angry, “No, mine!” from Thor, who shoved the goat under her skirts, glaring at the raven. 

Frigga huffed a laugh as the raven continued to tease with a, “ _No, mine!_ ”, as he jumped closer, inspecting Thor. 

When he was close enough, Thor threw herself forward to grab him, the plum seed and silver goat dropping from her skirts to hit the ground, and grasping hands missed as he took to the air. 

Instantly, her anger was gone as she watched Huugin with wide eyes. 

“Mine?” She asked Frigga sweetly, pointing to Huugin. The bird and Frigga both let out a laugh, though Huugin’s was far more unnerving. Thor didn’t seem to mind, trying to imitate this as well, continuing to watch the raven. 

“What sweet sounds for a weary soul to hear,” Odin said from the doorway. 

For a long moment, Frigga felt both embarrassment and amusement that the first sound Odin heard from his family was their daughter trying to cackle like a bird.

Ignoring this, she stood and turned, relief flooding her body at his voice, only to feel her body go cold at the sight of him. 

Muunin was perched on his right shoulder, and leapt into the air to join his brother. From the side of her eye, Frigga saw Thor ignore her father entirely in favor of the second raven. 

There was a bundle of dirty blankets in Odin’s right arm and his armor was wet, from Jötunheim's snow, no doubt. His hair was more white than brown now and-

“Where is your eye?” Frigga questioned. 

His right eye was completely sealed shut, without lashes or marks to indicate there had ever been an eye there at all. It was flat beneath, almost concave, and utterly _gone_ from his head. 

“I traded it,” he said simply. And she knew it was all he would say on the subject. Her face must have changed at the remark for he immediately moved further into the room towards her. “It no longer aches. I’ve already healed it over. I would look to my wife to make me a patch for it,” he said, wrapping an arm over her shoulders. 

She embraced him back fully and startled back when the blankets let out a cry when she pressed into them. 

Behind her, Thor shouted, “No!” in response to the sound and Odin turned to their daughter curiously as the ravens began to repeat it to amuse her. 

Frigga ignored them all in favor of looking down to the other babe, who immediately quieted after the single sound. 

It looked to be two months old and had dark wisps of hair. 

“A bastard?” She heard herself say. “You’ve brought back with you a bastard,” she felt almost lightheaded as her bone deep relief changed to something more betrayed and _hot_. 

“Frigga-”

“And the gall to bring it into the room near the daughter you’ve named your heir! I’ve no doubts it’s a boy as well!” She felt her cheeks turning red, stepping away from him furiously. 

The sheer humiliation of it all made her knees tremble but she quickly turned around to snatch up Thor, who watched her with watering eyes. 

She didn’t grasp at Frigga’s clothes or hair as she always did, keeping her hands curled close to her chest as her eyes spilled over and her chin wobbled. 

Frigga clutched her close and nearly sprinted to the door only to whirl and glare at Odin when it wouldn’t budge. 

“Open it,” she demanded. 

“You’re scaring our daughter,” he told her, shifting his arm where the babe had shut its eyes and slept on, uncaring. “And this child is not of my blood,” he said strongly. 

“What reason have you to hold a child not your own, Allfather?” She questioned, feeling her heart race too quickly still. 

_Allfather_ , he mouthed to himself. 

The room was silent for a long moment, save the minute scrapes of the raven’s claws tapping the floor where they hopped about anxiously between them, both watching Frigga with their horrible beady eyes. 

“Laufeyson,” Odin finally said. 

That was no giant in Odin’s arms. No giant of any kind. Frost or Fire. It was smaller than Thor had been as a newborn. 

Though perhaps that wasn’t fair. Thor was larger than most children.

And Laufey had a Jötun spouse, didn’t he?

“It has white skin,” Frigga noted. “A glamour for it to survive in Asgard?” she felt her herself calming down in increments, running a guilty hand in Thor’s hair, who was silent and trembling still. 

“A changeling. The war was already over. Laufey knelt,” Odin said. Frigga slowly made her way back to her chair, rubbing Thor’s back all the while. “I sent the army back as I negotiated with Laufey.”

She sent him a questioning look. 

“I took the Casket of Winters. It now resides in the Vault. In two millennia, Thor will give it back and broker more suitable terms with Jötunheim for her reign,” he said simply. “As I was making my way back to the Bifrost sight, I heard a babe cry. Jötun or not, there should have been nobody within my hearing range in that area. I investigated and found this babe lying naked and starving on an alter,” he admitted and Frigga felt her heart sink. 

“Laufeyson?” She repeated. 

“He bore the kinlines of the royal line on his face. When I touched him, his skin became Aesir, down to his bones.” Another silence sat between them before Odin murmured, “I believe Laufey left him as a sacrifice to Ymir.”

Silence reigned once more. 

“If Laufey did not want him, I take it the babe isn’t being fostered?” Frigga asked. 

“I will raise him. He has every right to Jötunheim as Laufey and Farbauti’s firstborn. The kinlines on his body deem it so. One day I will send him back and he and Thor can unite our Realms through friendship,” he said. “They will be raised together.”

Frigga couldn’t even begin to decide how she felt about any of this. 

“I already retrieved a wet nurse from the city for the boy. She waits in the nursery for him. I know not when he last received nourishment,” Odin admitted, rising to his feet warily. 

At the mention, she felt her own breasts leak milk. She’d been weaning Thor...but. 

The Jötun babe didn’t even have the strength to let out more than a single cry when it had been jostled. It hadn’t even opened its eyes when she raised her voice in he and Odin’s direction. 

_Was Odin your first source of safety_? She wondered, looking at the dirty cloth in Odin’s arms, and realizing it was in fact Odin’s cape. _A man covered in the blood of your people showed you more kindness than your own family_?

“Wait.”

Odin paused at the door, looking back at her.

“Give him to me,” Frigga demanded. 

He continued to observe her for several seconds before walking back to her. 

She released her grip on Thor, and placed her on the cushion to her left. When Odin drew near, their daughter moved back into her lap and resumed her crying. 

Frigga sighed regretfully, and ran a hand through her hair. “Shush now, Thor. All is well. Meet your Father,” she said soothingly. 

Odin took the seat Thor abandoned and looked about the mess Thor had made on the floor of his quills, trinkets, and jewels. “Was this mess her doing? Or Huugin’s?”

Said raven squawked in offense while the other cackled at it. 

Almost immediately, Thor untucked her face from Frigga’s neck to look for the ravens, eyelashes damp and face pink. 

Frigga quickly smiled when Thor looked up at her, knowing she was trying to assess the room the only way she knew how- through her mother. 

After the mute reassurance, her daughter clamored off her lap to the ravens, picking up the silver goat near Muunin with a chiding, “Mine,” to him. 

Frigga turned back to Odin and watched his shoulders release the tension they held as he watched his ravens indulge their daughter. 

Reaching to her ribs, Frigga began to undo the lacing there to expose her left breast, plucking the babe from Odin’s arms when she had done so.

As she began to unwrap the cape (and where in the world did Odin learn to _swaddle_?), the babe began to squirm, scrunching his face, but let out no actual sound, to her distress. 

After a few fumbling seconds, he latched onto her nipple far more gently than Thor ever had, and began to nurse. She wondered if it was from weakness or disposition. 

His body was slightly chilled still, despite having likely been in the cloak since Odin found him. His small hands kneaded her breast to the best of his ability and looked up at her and-

_Oh._

She had seen these green eyes before.

“This is our son,” she told Odin, who finally looked away from Thor.

He looked down to her chest where she and the babe held contact still, and she saw him nod his head in acknowledgment at the implications. 

“You’ve had visions of him?” Odin asked. 

She didn’t respond, looking back down to the boy who stared at her still, blinking up at her trustingly as only Thor ever had. 

Unbidden, her eyes welled with tears. 

“This is our son,” she repeated, voice wavering, unable to look away. 

“Mama?” Thor asked, standing near her right knee, opposite of Odin.

Finally breaking away her gaze, she turned to Thor, who stared at where the babe was latched onto her with her wide blue eyes. 

Was she jealous or curious? She readied her free hand to grab Thor’s if she decided to hit him.

Glancing to Frigga, who smiled, Thor moved closer to reach out to touch the babe’s cheek with a finger, who looked away from Frigga to Thor, suckling still. 

Thor continued to stare, moving her hand from his cheek to touch his dark hair. 

Odin and Frigga were quiet, watching them. She was reminded of when Thor first opened her eyes and they could only watch her to see what she would do, soaking in every detail they could. 

Finally, Thor turned to Frigga and asked, “Mine?”

Odin began to chortle helplessly at her side and Frigga reached out her hand to cup her daughter’s face. “Ours,” she gently corrected.

Thor frowned. She returned to the silver goat and plum seed on the floor, picking them up to deposit them on the babe’s chest, who didn’t startle at the cold silver, but unlatched from Frigga’s nipple nonetheless. 

“Ours,” Thor repeated dutifully.

“What a sweet daughter we have,” Odin murmured as Frigga eased the babe back to her nipple. Thor looked at her father distrustfully when he spoke, pressing closer to Frigga’s thigh. 

“For now,” Frigga warned. “She is fond of hitting and often steals things. I have to check every fold of her skirts at the end of the day to see what she’s taken. I once found spoon from dinner with jam still on it.”

“Tell me more about her,” he said, slowly reaching a hand to Thor who had taken back her goat to bite on. “I’ve missed so much.”

And Frigga did, watching as Thor finally allowed her father to run fingers through her hair, going so far as to offer Odin her slobbered goat, easily won over. 

All the while she glanced at the babe on her breast, who had drifted to sleep, his small hand on her breast as visions of who he’d become danced behind her eyes, not one vision clearly associated with another. 

_What a tangle he’ll make in any path he takes_ , she thought, more and more uncertain how to interpret what she saw.

“Loki,” she said, running a finger against his soft cheek.

“Loki?” Odin repeated, smiling at Thor when she clamored up his lap, grasping what loose cloth she could and stepping uncaringly on his boots for a boost. Odin made no move to help her, content to see what she could do.

“His name, Odin. Our son.”

“A knot?” He asked, finally turning from Thor to glance at the babe’s hair. 

Frigga only hummed an affirmative, looking to their daughter, who leaned as far as she could off Odin’s lap to gaze at the babe once more. 

“ _Brother_ , Thor,” Frigga urged gently. “Can you say _brother_?”

The girl looked at her mother with a frown, eyes moving from Frigga to her exposed breast and her new sibling. She turned her face to Frigga again and opened her mouth like a bird. 

Huffing a sigh, she stood up and passed the babe to Odin, reaching out to pick up Thor. “We’ll try again after you eat,” she compromised, thinking of the plums she left in the nursery. 

Odin adjusted her dress and laced her up without her say so and _oh_ , she had missed him greatly. 

Together they left the chambers for the nursery, arms and hearts full of their children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Thor was born in 963 and Loki is only a year younger.
> 
> Me, learning this while plotting: Wow...that sure is a long time to cover :,)
> 
> Anyway please comment lmao.

**Author's Note:**

> *insert MCU title sequence*


End file.
